As an antenna device for tracking an orbiting satellite, for example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a three-axis control antenna device that drives and controls individually a vertical axis for azimuth angle tracking, a horizontal axis for elevation angle tracking, and a cross horizontal axis which is on the horizontal axis and orthogonal to the horizontal axis. The three-axis control antenna device in Patent Literature 1 performs switching so that when a beam direction of an antenna is less than or equal to a set elevation angle, inputs are given to drive inputs of two axes out of three axes, whereas when the beam direction of the antenna is greater than or equal to the set elevation angle, inputs are given to the drive inputs of all of the three axes. Also, after the switching to this three-axis driving, a value of a specific axis obtained by calculating the present values of the three axes is provided to the drive input of the specific axis out of the three axes. When tracking a satellite passing near the zenith, the three-axis control antenna device in Patent Literature 1 performs real-time tracking by commanding the vertical axis to drive in an azimuth angle direction and aligning the beam direction of the antenna with a target object for the horizontal axis and the cross horizontal axis.
Even though the rotation speed of the azimuth angle (for the vertical axis) of the three-axis control antenna device in Patent Literature 1 is limited to its own maximum speed, the tracking shortage is compensated by rotating the cross horizontal axis, thereby enabling continuous tracking of a satellite near the zenith.